More than a decade on, Australians are still obsessed with vampire love – Sydney Morning Herald

"It's part of an overall trend we're seeing during COVID where Australians are retreating into classic books and comfort reads that deliver that nostalgia and escapism and joy," Ms Rusher says.

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"It's those thirty-somethings who are buying the physical book to complete their sets. They were the Twi-hard teens of 2005, and now they're Twi-thirty-somethings and Twi-mums."

Taylor Cole, the manager of Berkelouw Books Paddington in Sydney and a self-described "super-fan" who read the original quartet when she was 13, shares the sentiment.

"I was interested to see if it would be comparable [to the original novels] or if it was going to flip what we knew about Twilight on its head. But, to be honest, it's about the nostalgia, a hundred percent," Ms Cole says.

"2020 has just been a shit-fight of a year for everybody, and at a time when we just need something familiar and comforting, even if it's a little bit cringey, it's kind of the most necessary thing to tether onto at the moment."

Twilight superfan Taylor Cole, who's also the manager of Berkelouw Books in Paddington.Credit:Jessica Hromas

Jen Scott Curwood, an associate professor in English education and media studies at the University of Sydney, says such escapism "not even so much escaping our lives, but escaping into someone else's life" is a common appeal of novels, regardless of genre.

Dr Scott Curwood also says it's natural for readers to "develop a personal investment in characters and storylines", which may explain the franchise's appeal about 15 years on.

"I think a lot of readers would be curious. It's been over a dozen years since Twilight came out and Midnight Sun promised a lot of new perspectives and a new narrative voice. I think that would be appealing for readers who were quite loyal to Twilight when it first came out."

The timing of the book's release, in the midst of a pandemic, also offers some intriguing irony for fans who came-of-age with the series, adds Ms Cole.

"Because it spoke to a lot of young teenage girls at that time, between 2005 and 2010, it kind of feels like we're returning to a family or a relationship that supported and inspired us at a time when we thought it was the most challenging time of our lives you know, that heightened sense of anxiety and tumultuousness of being a teenager. And then you compare that to 2020...," she says.

"I think its success is also a reminder that we can collectively unite through a book. It just feels really important that we've got something like this to use at a time like this when we're so isolated."

Robert Moran is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

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More than a decade on, Australians are still obsessed with vampire love - Sydney Morning Herald